PASSAGES: Cher to Grace 'Will' Again

By Stephen M. Silverman

Wednesday March 20, 2002 01:00 PM EST

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CAST: Cher, 55, is slated to make a return visit to NBC's "Will & Grace" on the May 16 one-hour season finale, reports USA Today. The paper says that her role will be that of "a heavenly character." Last season, the pop diva showed up in an episode in which Jack (Sean Hayes) mistook her for a Cher impersonator. Other upcoming guests include Michael Douglas as a police detective who's attracted to Will (Eric McCormack) and Glenn Close as a celebrity photographer . . . ANNOUNCED: Oscar-nominated "A Beautiful Mind" director Ron Howard, 48, plans to make a movie about what really happened at the 1836 Battle of the Alamo in Texas, reports Variety. (John Wayne's 1960 epic, "The Alamo," has long been considered a gloss-over.) "I believe audiences are ready to embrace the complexities of the film, but it still boils down to heroism," Howard said at a press conference, according to Variety. "The simplistic approach is not appropriate and it's not interesting. We know there will be limitations and controversies" . . . DIED: Groundbreaking actress ROSETTA LeNOIRE, 90, who made her Broadway debut in the 1939 African-American musical "The Hot Mikado" but who will be best remembered as Grandma Winslow on TV's "Family Matters" (1989-97), died Sunday in Teaneck, N.J., after a long, undisclosed illness, reports the Associated Press. Another notable death was that of MAUD FARRIS-LUSE -- who, at 115 (and 56 days), was recognized last year by the Guinness World Records people as being the world's oldest living person. She succumbed in Michigan on Monday to complications of pneumonia. "It was her time," her great-granddaughter Laurie Ferris, 32, told the AP. "She lived a long time and now she's in a better place. She passed away very, very peacefully."